27th February 2015By Lissa Rankin MDGuest Writer for Wake Up World
When I interviewed women who had survived breast cancer for my art project The Woman Inside, I noticed that they all shared one remarkable thing in common.
They had all faced down death and decided to live every day like it might be their last. And then they all beat cancer.
The more interviews I did, the more I noticed that these women w...

2nd March 2015By Frank M. Wanderer Ph.DGuest Writer for Wake Up World
In our days the Y and Z generations have debuted on the revolving stage of life. Y generation consists of the people born between 1976 and 1995. In slang, they are also referred to as the ”Youtube generation.” Z generation started in 1996 with Facebook and its members are still being born today, too. They are often called ”turn of the ...

27th February 2015By Phil WattGuest Writer for Wake Up World
We all meditate, whether we know it or not. This is because meditation occurs when we alter our brain wave frequency, and different activities, such as exercise, can do it naturally. Once we are aware of this, we can consciously participate in the ways in which we do meditate.
And considering how productive meditation is for our health,...

27 February 2015By Trinity BourneContributing Writer for Wake Up World
I’ve noticed that whenever I drink fresh, organic vegetable juice my energy levels go through the ceiling. I feel energised and vibrant; so much so, that I’ve incorporated vegetable juicing into my weekly rhythm as a general health and wellness tonic.
Juicing fresh vegetables, herbs and spices like ginger, can be an excellent way to rese...

1st March 2015By Alexandra Du ToitGuest Writer for Wake Up World
Children these days have many technological distractions that keep them busy and less connected with the environment. Whether it’s a video game, television program or computer screen, children are forgetting how to connect with their natural side.
Many parents seem to be forgetting the importance of teaching children about their intrinsic ...

26th February 2015By Shirley PlantGuest Writer for Wake Up World
"Mindful eating helps us learn to hear what our body is telling us about hunger and satisfaction. It helps us become aware of who in the body/heart/mind complex is hungry, and how and what is best to nourish it." ~ Jan Chozen Bays M.D., for Psychology Today.
So many of us eat on the run, snack on fast food on the way to an event, and rush our ...

1st March 2015
By Bruce H. Lipton Ph.D
Guest Writer for Wake Up World
The common idea that DNA determines so much of who we are — not only our eye or hair color, for example, but also our addictions, disorders, or susceptibility to cancer — is a misconception. This concept “says you are less powerful than your genes.”
The problem with that belief system is that it extends to another level … You find yourself to ...

26th February 2015By Tomasz Kopec MDGuest Writer for Wake Up World
I have a good news for seekers of the world. There is a simple theory that can deliver important answers and insights into our reality. If you feel frustrated with your life, exhausted or miserable, if you feel your life is lacking something, then diffusing and balancing your attention with an Open Focus exercise can help you sync...

On February 4, 2015 the attorney representing Monsanto and other “agricultural and biotech groups” showed up at our County Council meeting here on the Big Island of Hawai’i. She was here to sabotage our GMO ban, which was heroically passed on a glorious December 5, 2013. As expected, once this legislation was passed, the big biotech companies sued our county, just as they do every other county and state that tries to interfere with their poisonous profiteering.

As a result of that lawsuit, on November 27 of last year, US Magistrate Judge Barry Kurren overturned the GMO ban. Judge Kurren’s reasoning was that State law pre-empts County law in this case, and that lawmakers had intended the State, not the County, to have broad control over agricultural concerns on all Hawaiian islands.

The whole paradigm of the genetic engineering technology is based on a misunderstanding.

I retired 12 years ago after a long career as a research scientist for Agriculture Canada. When I was on the payroll, I was the designated scientist of my institute to address public groups and reassure them that genetically engineered crops and foods were safe. I don’t know if I was passionate about it but I was knowledgeable. I defended the side of technological advance, of science and progress.

There is, however, a growing body of scientific research – done mostly in Europe, Russia, and other countries – showing that diets containing engineered corn or soya cause serious health problems in laboratory mice and rats. I have in the last 12 years changed my position. I started paying attention to the flow of published studies coming from Europe, some from prestigious labs and published in prestigious scientific journals, that questioned the impact and safety of engineered food.

The climate change/carbon emissions debate is over. It’s a redundant distraction to the broader actuality of humanity’s blatantly destructive environmental practices. The question at the core of the ‘climate’ discussion is not if the planet is warming, or whether carbon levels are to blame, the question is whether our current way of life on planet earth is sustainable. Yet this supposedly “scientific” debate has deteriorated to narrow, ill-informed political rhetoric that keeps us debating the details, not the central issue.

Whatever the temperature may be, or how wild the storms, it is only a symptom of our collective disconnection from Mother Nature. Living a lifestyle that is incompatible with nature, we have allowed our atmosphere, water, soil and food supplies all to be ruined by ever-increasing environmental, industrial and agricultural poisons. And now, with unprecedented rates of disease affecting ‘developed’ nations, our increasingly toxic reality — changing climate or not — is reason enough to end this narrow ‘carbon’ rhetoric and initiate the many systemic reforms we know are now essential to our survival.

A recent report by the Ministry of Health in Cordoba, Argentina, has documented a disturbing trend for those who live in areas where pesticide-intensive GM crops are grown — specifically, a dramatic spike in cancer deaths.

The report covered five years of collected data. The average cancer deaths in the province is 158 per 100,000 individuals. And yet, four of the “Pampa Gringa” districts have much higher death rates — between 216 and 230. “Pampa Gringa” is considered the premier agricultural region of the Cordoba province.

The Report on Cancer in Cordoba 2004-2009 is the official investigation which links the use of pesticides — especially glyphosate — to the staggering increase in cancer deaths.

‘Cancer cases are multiplying as never before in areas with massive use of pesticides’

What if the very GM agricultural system that Monsanto claims will help to solve the problem of world hunger depends on a chemical – glyposate – that kills the very pollinator upon which approximately 70% of world’s food supply depends?

The researchers found that concentrations of glyphosate (GLY) consistent with the type of exposures associated with standard spraying practices in GM agriculture and neighboring eco-systems reduced the honeybees’ sensitivity to nectar reward and impaired their learning abilities – two behavioral consequences likely to adversely affect their survival abilities.

A study reveals a hitherto unknown mechanism behind how the world’s most popular GMO herbicide harms the brain.

Remarkably, despite Roundup® herbicide’s widespread approval around the world, the most basic mechanisms through which it exerts toxicity towards non-target animal species (including humans) have yet to be adequately characterized.

Concerned about Brazil’s status as the largest global consumer of pesticides since 2008, researchers sought to elucidate toxicologic effects of these agrochemicals in humans.

Their study, published in the journal Toxicology, provides a proposed mechanism for the adverse neurological effects of Roundup® (a glyphosate-based herbicide). It is has been observed that agrochemical exposure can lead to, or accelerate, neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. However, lacking a mechanism of action, such a link can more easily be written off as coincidental; which is largely the position of the medical establishment, agricultural industry, and its would-be regulators. The authors point out that, “neurodegenerative conditions are frequently associated with glutamatergic excitotoxicity and oxidative stress,” which is why they decided to investigate the subject further.

What if the very GM agricultural system that Monsanto claims will help to solve the problem of world hunger depends on a chemical that kills the very pollinator upon which approximately 70% of world’s food supply now depends?

The researchers found that concentrations of glyphosate (GLY) consistent with the type of exposures associated with standard spraying practices in GM agricultural- and neighboring eco- systems reduced the honeybee’s sensitivity to nectar reward and impaired their learning abilities – two behavioral consequences likely to adversely affect their survival abilities. Moreover, while sub-lethal doses were not found to overtly affect their foraging behavior, they hypothesized that because of their resilience, “..forager bees could become a source of constant inflow of nectar with GLY traces that could then be distributed among nest mates, stored in the hive and have long- term negative consequences on colony performance.”

A Deeper Look at the Study: Roundup Interferes with Bee Appetite and Learning

It is high time to change the debate from the safety of engineering food to the pesticides that are inside the food. The technology is essentially about spraying a weed killer on the crops and the herbicide RoundUp is an integral part of the technology – the engineered crops are called RoundUp Ready. Farmers everywhere have been assured complete safety, higher yields and savings of herbicide. When these promises don’t quite pan out, the farmers don’t have much of an opportunity to do something different. It turns out the technology has been incredibly successful, so much so that there is not much of a market for non-engineered seeds now. Monsanto has a monopoly and has cornered the seed supply of much of the planet.

Since all engineered foods come from crops sprayed with RoundUp, they all contain residues of RoundUp. And it turns out other crops are also sprayed with this herbicide, but much later, just before harvest, because it kills the plants and they are dried fast to make harvesting easier for the farmers. This is commonly done with sugar cane, beans, grains, potatoes and many other crops. I usually say in my lectures that if you want to avoid any residue of RoundUp herbicide in your food, go organic. That is the only choice.

We may not associate much risk with seemingly “inedible” genetically modified crops like cotton, but the dangers are very real. GM cotton actually poses a triple threat — Bt pollen, widespread use of cottonseed oil in the food industry and cottonseed cake fed to animals.

Now, researchers are concerned that Monsanto’s genetically modified cotton crops — grown around the world, from India to the United States, Europe, Australia and South America — are creating antibiotic-resistant superbugs that would make gonorrhea, and possibly tuberculosis, untreatable.

The history of Monsanto’s genetically modified cotton is far from the “white gold revolution” purported by the controversial biotech corporation. Claiming lower insecticide usage and higher crop yield, Bt cotton is the poster child for Monsanto success. Or is it? Navigating away from corporate rhetoric, other sources paint a much different picture.

Dr. Árpád Pusztai (pronounced Poos-tie) is well known for his controversial discovery that GM potatoes actually cause damage to the intestines and immune systems of rats. In his now-famous words:

“If I had the choice I would certainly not eat it [GMO foods]. We are putting new things into food which have not been eaten before. The effects on the immune system are not easily predictable and I challenge anyone who will say that the effects are predictable… I find it’s very unfair to use our fellow citizens as guinea pigs”.

Sadly, but NOT surprisingly, after 36 years as a respected scientist at the Rowett Research Institute… his contract was not renewed.

But there is hope! In 2005, Pusztai received the Whistleblower Award from the German Section of the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) and the Federation of German Scientists (VDW).